A San Diego man has been charged
with hacking into a University of Southern California computer system and
accessing confidential information submitted by students applying to the
school.

Eric McCarty, 25, was
named in a criminal complaint that was unsealed Wednesday charging him with
knowingly having transmitted a code or command to intentionally cause damage to
USC’s on-line application system.

McCarty is scheduled to
make his initial appearance in United States District Court in Los Angeles next Friday. If he is
convicted of the computer intrusion charge alleged in the complaint, McCarty
would face a maximum possible sentence of 10 years in federal prison.

McCarty, who is employed
as a computer network administrator, also earns money by performing
“penetration testing” designed to simulate malicious attacks on computer
networks, a U.S. attorney spokesperson
said.

According
to the affidavit in support of the criminal complaint, on June 17,
2005, McCarty used a computer at his home to visit USC’s online
applicant Web site. The applicant Web site, which exists for persons applying
for admission to the university, requires the use of a login username and
password, and allows a user to apply or modify an existing application to the
school. Information for more than 275,000 applicants from 1997 through the
present is stored within a sequel database, and includes data such as social
security numbers and birth dates.